


Along The Way

by Periazhad



Series: Nest [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Hair Pets, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Siblings, Siblings, no one is Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 14:42:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30073827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Periazhad/pseuds/Periazhad
Summary: Recovery is a process. The first six months or so after Jason is welcomed into the Manor, in bits and pieces.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Nest [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199378
Comments: 49
Kudos: 333





	Along The Way

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ise for editing and to Ellegy42 for telling me, yes, if I'm coming up with all of this just to be able to write the next installment clearly, I should clean it up because there are people who want to read it.

Three months after Jason comes home, Tim asks Bruce how long he is willing to wait for Tim to be Robin again.

“B—because we’re working on it, but he says it’s not always—always going to go quickly, and some things have been  _ hard.” _ Much harder than Tim had expected, actually. “And I don’t want—want to rush, he says that doesn’t work, actually, b—but I don’t want you thinking I’m not going to be useful, because I  _ am,  _ I  _ will, _ I just…” 

Tim twists his hands together nervously. “I’m wondering how long you want to wait?”

He’s trembling, staring at the floor. Usually, after a therapy session, he hides away in his room for an hour or two, but this time he showed up at the door to the study. Bruce hadn’t even had time to ask if needed anything before he was blurting everything out.

Standing up, Bruce walks over and crouches in front of Tim, looking up at him. He’s honestly not that surprised that Tim has been assuming his continued welcome in this family is based on his usefulness.

“Tim, sweetheart, will you look at me?” He waits until Tim’s over-bright eyes are on him. “I don’t care if you’re never Robin again.” Tim flinches a little. “I don’t care if you never go out on the streets with us again. You’re not here because you’re a recovering vigilante; you’re here because we want  _ you,  _ Tim, not what you can  _ do _ for us.”

Tim is blinking rapidly, trying to keep the tears back.

“I am adopting you because I love you, not to make it easier to protect our identities or do our nightwork. I want to adopt you because I had been  _ waiting _ for you to tell me you never wanted to go back to your parents’ again. Alfred, Dick, and I were all just waiting for you to realize your home is here, with us.”

Tim bursts into tears, and Bruce folds him into a hug, wishing fiercely he had never failed him, never let Hood take him, but wishing most of all he’d taken Tim from the Drakes sooner. 

Jason had come to Bruce a month ago to ask if Tim was just staying until his parents got back, with an edge to his tone Bruce had never heard before. When Bruce, confused, had explained he had legal custody of Tim, Jason had visibly relaxed.

“Good, because I know I was never  _ really _ Hood—“ Bruce always quietly thrilled to hear Jason admit that. “—but you  _ know _ how much I hate assholes.” 

Bruce had had a vivid flashback to their many, many fights about using appropriate force, no matter the crime.

“And if you weren’t going to do something, I was going to find a way to take care of it.”

“Take care of it?” Bruce inquired, not really wanting to know.

“Well,  _ I  _ shouldn’t do it, but I still have contacts, from before.”

Sometimes, Bruce doesn’t think Jason sees how far removed he is from what the Pit made him. Six months ago, he was in the middle of kidnapping and torturing Tim, and now he was willing to put out a hit on Tim’s parents just for their admittedly appalling neglect.

Bruce could have lectured him about how they don’t kill, how killing is wrong, and how there are other ways to get justice, but instead he just pulled Jason into a hug.

Much like he’s hugging Tim, who is now sobbing about wanting to be useful. “A—and it’s not just to stay here, Bruce, it’s because I  _ like _ helping, really, I just—I can’t even leave the Manor yet, so I can’t go back out and—”

Bruce is rubbing his back when an idea occurs to him.

“Do you want to run back-end for us in the Cave?”

Tim lifts his head and sniffs. “What?”

“In the Cave. It’s useful to have someone with access to all the data we have in the Cave, someone able to run diagnostics while we’re out in the field. You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for, though,” he cautions, but Tim’s already brightening.

\--- 

Dick is absolutely thrilled, and Bruce has already prepared him for the fact that Tim won’t use Robin.

“Okay, baby bird, you need a code name!”

“Can I just go by T? Or—or something simple?”

“I was thinking Flamebird!”

“Flamebird?”

“Don’t you want to be my partner?”

Bruce shook his head, because none of his children seem to be able to withstand the persuasion of the others. A little more coaxing, and Tim is a reluctant Flamebird.

\--- 

Dick is refusing to move out. Bruce doesn’t  _ mind _ having him home, but he worries it means something is wrong. Dick quit his job, moved home, and won’t leave, even though Tim and Jason are safe, and doesn’t see a problem with that.

Since Jason and Tim are both in therapy, Bruce offers Dick therapy, but it’s cheerfully declined. 

Bruce presses the issue. “I’m just thinking, Dick, that it’s always healthy for children to find their own path and—“

“Uh huh,” Dick says, crossing his arms and raising a brow. “Bruce, is it _ healthy  _ for you to dress up as a bat and beat up criminals?”

“I’ve—I’ve been to therapy,” Bruce protests, but lets the matter drop. He’ll ask Alfred to bring it up.

Alfred is unwilling to help.

“Master Bruce, he just needs time.”

“Alfred, he quit his job and moved home, but Tim is safe and Jason is safe.”

“Oh?” Alfred says, raising a brow much like Dick did, and Bruce has a sinking sensation. “Would you like to move out, Master Bruce, now that those boys are safe?”

Bruce flinches at the idea, thinks of protesting that it’s different for him. But there’s a look in Alfred’s eye, and Bruce knows when he’s beaten.

Despite all of that, a week later he happens to have a brochure for the GCPD.

“Oh wow, they’re hiring,” he says, falsely hearty, ignoring the looks he’s getting at the dinner table. “You’d be an asset to them, Dick.”

Dick sighs, but he takes the brochure.

\---

This means, though, that everyone in the house but Jason and Alfred are doing vigilante business. Jason feels a little alone in the evenings and nights, when Dick and Bruce are out and Tim is down helping out. He won’t go down the Cave, because he doesn’t want to crowd Tim, so of course it’s Alfred who notices him moping.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says one afternoon, cornering Bruce in his study. “Have you noticed Master Jason has been a little off?”

A knot of cold fear forms in his heart, the image of Jason sitting in his blood always waiting to spring to life, and Bruce snaps his head up to Alfred.

“What’s wrong, Alfred?” The intensity surprises even him.

“With all of you involved in the vigilante business, he seems to be a little at loose ends in the evening.” 

Oh. Oh. Just—just something like that. Well, Bruce can fix that. First he’ll have to check with Tim, to make sure he’s okay sharing the cave with Jason, but Bruce doesn’t think that will be a problem.

\---

It was Dick who helped Tim and Jason first, and Bruce still can’t decide if it was intentional. He’d lure his brothers into movie night, since they can’t tell him no, and make them sit on either side of him.

“You can’t make me pick between my brothers!” 

And they wouldn’t.

But Dick has never been good at sitting still, and he was always getting up, for snacks or just to move, and Jason and Tim would find themselves alone on the couch. Alone in the same room.

The more it happened, and the more  _ nothing _ happened _ ,  _ the more comfortable they got together. Jason built more confidence in the Pit staying gone, more confidence in  _ Tim _ believing it was gone, and created memories of Tim not being terrified of him. Tim was slowly overlaying all his negative memories of Jason’s face and voice with better ones; memories of being safe and even happy.

Recovery is a process, though, and one night Jason opens his door and finds Tim shaking outside it.

“I’m s—sorry, Jason, I’m sorry! I know you’re not Hood,” he stutters, stopping just inside the doorway. “And I’m working on it, I promise, I know it’s n—not you. You know—I see your eyes and I  _ know _ but—” He takes a heaving breath, wiping uselessly at his tears. “But I don’t want you to feel unwelcome in y—your own home. I can—can go back to my house, so you can have your f—family and Robin and you don’t—you don’t have to feel—I can go—” he breaks off, sobbing.

Jason stares at him for a moment. He doesn’t even want to  _ be _ Robin. And he definitely doesn’t want Tim to go back to the Drakes, hell no.

“Tim,” he tries to say, but he’s not even sure Tim can hear him. “Tim, I don’t want to be Robin.” Tim keeps crying, his whole body shaking, and Jason isn’t even sure how he’s still standing.

Tim  _ is  _ still uncomfortable around Jason, and Jason is still uncomfortable around him, but Tim is crying like his heart is breaking, and he’s in Jason’s doorway, so Jason can’t even go and get someone  _ else _ to help. 

And, well, it’s not fun to have Tim be afraid of him sometimes, but Jason understands why, and Tim is shockingly good about it, all things considered. But having Tim crying and being scared and being afraid is almost too much for _him,_ because it brings up all of _his_ memories and—

The Pit isn’t here. The Pit was never Jason, anyways, he firmly reminds himself. He hears his therapist, telling him to try to set aside worrying about what the Pit would do or has done, and focus instead on what _Jason_ wants to do. 

And Jason wants—he’s wanted, since the Pit left—to be able to be someone whom Tim could trust, who could comfort Tim. And Tim, even if he doesn’t realize it, clearly trusts Jason, because he comes in at night alone, and he’s here alone with Jason right now.

All Jason wants to do is to help his little brother stop crying, and maybe now he can.

He moves slowly forward, and wraps his arms around Tim. Tim freezes, not even breathing, and, for a heartstopping second, Jason thinks he’s fucked up, but then Tim shudders and his arms wrap back around Jason and Tim  _ clings,  _ still shaking but not sobbing.

And then, thank heaven for Bruce’s paranoid, obsessed, constant mother-henning that none of them really mind, because Bruce is standing in the hallway behind Tim, and Jason says  _ help me _ with his eyes.

“Hey now, what’s wrong?” Bruce asks, in his warm and gentle voice.

Jason waits, but Tim stays silent, clinging and shuddering.

Bruce looks to Jason and Jason stares back, helpless, still holding Tim tightly.

“H—he said he thought he should go home so I could—could have Robin and not worry about him being uncomfortable around me.”

Bruce puts a hand on Tim’s back. “Tim, sweetheart, no one wants you to leave.” 

Tim  _ keens,  _ actually keens, and Jason is  _ done _ with this. He scoops Tim up and brings him to the bed, where they can be comfortable and figure this out.

But when he puts Tim down, Tim just curls into a ball, shaking and says, “I—I’m sorry, I don’t mean to—I didn’t mean—”

Jason slides his hand into Tim’s hair and starts stroking. He’s seen Dick do this to Tim, if the kid is sitting at his feet, or if Dick is helping him back to sleep at night. And Tim seemed to like it, it helped him, and Jason is reveling in his newfound ability to be able to touch and help Tim.

He can  _ see _ Tim start to relax. The sobbing slows, the shivers die out. He’s still curled tightly into a ball, but even that is starting to loosen as his body relaxes.

Bruce sits on the bed, close enough Jason can feel his warmth, and puts his hand on Tim’s back again.

“Tim,” Jason says softly, and Tim flinches a little. “Please don’t leave. I like having a little brother. I don’t want Robin back, and I don’t want you to leave. I know—” His throat closes off for a moment, and Bruce presses closer to him, other hand on Jason’s knee, but stays silent. “I know you aren’t afraid of  _ me,  _ and I know you’re healing. I’m healing, too. You know sometimes it’s—it’s hard for me, too.”

It  _ is _ hard, sometimes, to see Tim and feel the memories of screams and blood and green pressing in on him. On hard days, he can’t be in the same room as Tim. Jason knows he might always have hard days, but Tim is his brother, and  _ neither _ of them are going anywhere.

Tim lifts his head, and Jason leaves his hand resting gently on his head. All of them can see how touch-starved this kid is, and Jason spares a thought to wish he was still killing assholes _. _ The Drakes would make the top of his list.

Bruce and Jason talk to Tim, coaxing him into believing they want him, and that he should stay. Neither of them mention they wouldn’t  _ let _ him go back to the Drakes; no one is letting this kid back into a neglectful home.

Jason has the winning argument. “Baby bird,” he says, stealing Dick’s name for him. “If you’re not here, I won’t heal.” 

Tim’s eyes widen. 

“I need to see—I need to see you, to remember that you’re—that you survived, that I didn’t—” He swallows memories of things that didn’t happen, and focuses on the fact that Tim is still breathing. “It helps me to see that you’re here, and you know I’m not Hood, and you believe in me.” His eyes feel hot, and he blinks rapidly. “If you leave, I won’t—I need—I want you to stay.”

Jason blinks again, and a tear slips down his cheek. He turns away, but it’s too late, and Tim is reaching out for him, and saying, “ _ Jason,” _ and Jason knows Tim will stay. Everyone can see how badly the kid wants to be useful, wants to be busy, wants to help. And Jason’s given him an excellent reason to stay, and it’s not even a lie. If Tim didn’t come into Jason’s room so often after nightmares, because the first time turned into a pattern, Jason might be the one coming to see him.

Tim curls up, half on Jason’s lap, and falls asleep between one blink and the next. Bruce offers to carry him back to his bed. Jason thinks about it.

He thinks about how often Tim has nightmares, and creeps, often trembling, into Jason’s room. Jason flicks on the lamp, lets him see the blue eyes, and Tim leaves quietly, reassured.

But Jason’s noticed the harder, the more emotional the day, the more likely he is to get a nighttime visitor. Why make Tim go through all that trouble when he could just stay? So Bruce leaves Tim, and turns out the light.

\---

When Tim wakes up, he’s not sure where he is and tenses for a moment. Has—what if—but it’s just a room in the Manor, it’s—it’s Jason room. And the previous night floods back and he flushes from embarrassment and slips out while Jason is still sleeping.

But the next night, he slips into Jason’s room, because he just needs to see—but Jason doesn’t turn on the lamp. He holds his covers open and waits. And Tim, he _wants,_ but he shouldn’t—he tells himself it must be less disruptive than turning on a lamp so it’s better for Jason. And Jason needs him, right? Jason needs to know that Tim is alive and that Tim trusts him. So he crawls in, and Jason wraps an arm around him, and Tim feels so _safe._

It takes him a full week, and his counselor asking about his nightmares, to realize he never has a nightmare when he sleeps with Jason. Usually, even after checking on Jason, he’d have multiple nightmares on the bad nights. Sometimes, he just wouldn’t go back to sleep after checking Jason’s eye color, because why risk it? And he was never going to bother Jason more than once a night.

Sleeping with Jason becomes a regular thing, and Tim feels the better for it.

So, when Bruce comes and asks if Tim would mind if he invites Jason to help out in the Cave, running back-end, Tim has no objections.

\---

Jason initially declines, on the grounds of not wanting to make Tim feel uncomfortable. Bruce pauses for a moment, wondering how to gracefully say  _ Jaylad, he sleeps with you half the night, do you really think he’s going to care? _

“Jay,” Bruce says. “Tim said it was fine.”

“I know, Dad, but—”

“Do you really think he isn’t comfortable with you?” He’s hoping Jason doesn’t make him spell it out.

Jason prevaricates for a minute, but he eventually concedes. 

The moment Dick finds out, he swoops in to give Jason a code name.

“I can’t just go by Jay? See, people will think it’s an initial, not even my name…” Jason trails off. “You already have a name picked out, don’t you.”

Dick glances around, and lowers his voice. “We want Tim to feel like part of the family, right?”

Jason slowly nods.

“And he’s Flamebird, right? I was thinking Phoenix for you. Rebirth, and fire to match Tim!” 

Dick is practically vibrating with excitement, and Jason used to find it so easy to tell him no, but if Tim really wants to be included…

“I guess that can work.”

Dick carefully has another private conversation with Tim about Jason wanting to fit in, and picking a fire name to match Tim. Neither one of them want to disappoint or isolate the other, and Tim quietly decides to never change his name, even though he was planning to do so if— _ when _ he got back on the streets 

(The truth comes out five years later, when they’re both on the streets, and they stare at each in shock for a moment. 

The next night, Tim shyly announces he’s been thinking of a new name. Watching Dick try to control his face when Tim tells him he’s picked  _ Sir Goose _ pales in comparison to when Jason steps forward, shoots Dick a very stern look, and says he’s always enjoyed having a name themed to Tim and wants to be called  _ Duckbutt. _ Bruce’s face is completely blank, but Dick’s mouth hangs open. He pesters them all night to admit it’s a joke, but they refuse to respond to anything but their new names. For a month. 

Then they corner Dick and say they don’t feel like real brothers when Dick has such a different name, and ask him to go by Duckwing. Dick’s mouth opens and closes, but Tim’s lip wobbles when he says, “Don’t you like being our brother?” Jason is glaring at him over Tim’s head, and Dick reluctantly agrees, “I’ll—I’ll give it a try, baby bird. Maybe for a night or two?”

They call him Duckwing for six weeks.)

**Author's Note:**

> and extra thanks to Ise for having my back when I panicked and said "what would they do when they found Dick fucked them over??" because siblings are still kind of a huge mystery to me. Duckwing and the other names are 100% her.
> 
> At some point Bruce gets a call from Talia, who wants to meet up and “show him something.” Everyone, including Bruce, knows it’s a trap, but he’s got a year’s worth of pain and fear and worry and he wants to yell at her. 
> 
> The shock keeps him from yelling at her, but his family just grew a little larger, and he finds he doesn’t even mind the missed opportunity.


End file.
